Monday, November 28, 2011

an art gesture a day (aagad!) - day twenty eight...

corrrrrr - its been a loooooong time since I sat down to do some seriously real calligraphy!

I feel like a retired olympics track star....

really out of shape ....

staring down the track -

remembering how quickly and fluidly I could run the course...

once upon a long ago

(sigh)

It's been many years since I last seriously wielded the pen and nib,

which is in part why last year I resigned from the ASC..... (I no longer felt comfortable with the title 'guild member' - a peer acknowledged 'master' of the calligraphic form - and I never felt that I was all that crash hot in a technical sense anyway.....)

but

but

unlike a retired olympian - I CAN see how I could get back into shape....

and pushing gouache around with my brause nib

reminds me just how much I really loved the craft...

after I penned the graduation certificates for all the delishous kidlets of cobargo public school

I pulled down a box I'd put away when EJ was a toddler...

a monster sized calligraphic/ graphic project I shelved about 5 years ago

I had spent months and months developing calligraphic renditions of nursery rhymes

and natty little complementary illustrations

for hours on end whilst baby EJ slept I worked away....

refining the lettering and the designs

I planned to sew/collage the illustrations

(hence the massive box of gathered fabric scraps)

the calligraphy was rather idiosyncratic -

an individual style I developed over years of fiddle and practice

I was well into the final stages before I put everything in the big box

and then put the box up on a high shelf

and left it there.....

recently a lovely girlfriend was visiting and she spied the box on the shelf

I got it down and shared it

and her reaction made me question all the excuses I had for shelving this all those years ago...

3 comments:

Thanks for sharing this post and work Ronnie - it resonates strongly with me. I loved your athlete analogy and it is exactly how I feel when I try to begin a serious piece of writing again (broken fingers don't help, but are really an excuse). I love that moment of recognition - like meeting a long lost friend or love and being reminded again of how we felt when we doing this and the joy that the craft can bring - sometimes we need to be away from something to really appreciate it. Good luck with the long lost project - enjoy the re-discovery time.

I've been enjoying your daily art gestures, Ronnie. Your lettering and illustrations for the nursery rhymes project are delightful! Maybe now is the right time to revisit and finish it. (That could be another art challenge: revisiting and finishing abandoned projects.) I have plenty of my own...

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